Having spent a good few years in export sales all of the above, bar the recession part, mean absoulute sod all when you are trying to get people to buy products. People want to make money, thats all - culture, language etc mean jack in general (unless you get bad PR, but not even that has stopped many companies).
At the end of the day the easiest parts of th world to do business are the EU or the countires the EU (collectivley) has screwed over in bilateral trade agreements.
If you are looking for groqwing economies then there are many better non-anglosphere options too.
Proximity aside there is no compelling case for the overbalance we have in terms of trade to the EU. We can't form a trade agreement with (for example) Canada thanks to our membership of the EU. We can't tap into the growth of the BRIC countries for the same reason. If we pulled out of the EU no tariffs would be introduced because the markets wouldn't allow it. Our access to the Schengen area wouldn't be restricted either because business and the markets wouldn't allow it.